I think it is a good idea to have official public channel to report ethics violations of founders. My guess is that YC partners would try to uphold https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/ And quietly weed out rogue founders from the network. But this is just a guess.
You guys know what would be really cool? An adblock plugin that worked on page popups (not on the ads, just the shit that takes up your screen asking for your email or other random thing)
This wouldn't help you on your phone but at least if you were in front of a computer maybe it wouldn't be as bad.
Seems simple enough, just extend the expiration dates on the meds that don't turn toxic and that still work.
The issue here though is that it's not in the drug manufacturers interest to have super long dates. Putting labels that expire sooner means they can push higher volume.
There's also the not-irrelevant issue that testing is slow and potentially other than free. How do you find out when a drug expires? You have a bunch of it sit around and test it periodically, right?
I assume that would be done after bringing a drug to market, otherwise drugs could easily be delayed 10+ years if they're shelf-stable.
Nobody said they need to find the absolute last day the drug expires before they can get it to market.
If it's a new drug and they can only say for sure that it lasts 6 months then put that on the label and ship it out. But assuming the drug will be out for 10+ years they should be continually testing the expiration date and updating as they've had more time to make that determination.
But like I said initially (and as you nicely pointed out) that costs money so why bother?
> If it's a new drug and they can only say for sure that it lasts 6 months then put that on the label and ship it out. But assuming the drug will be out for 10+ years they should be continually testing the expiration date and updating as they've had more time to make that determination.
This needs regulatory work. And this bring very little returns, so your regulatory resources are better spent somewhere else. There are other incentives in place.
If scientists are able to calculate the longevity of chemicals, food, and other products without having to wait the actual time period, I don't see how or why pharmaceutical drugs would be any different.
It's very likely it is not favorable to companies to look into this, just as it was revealed that the EpiPen expiration date was not really true.
You're absolutely right! Those calculations can be done without actual testing. The only wrinkle is that doing so comes with the risk of failing to foresee something or otherwise being wrong. So there are some error bars involved.
What kind of error rate are you willing to accept in models of pharmaceutical shelf stability? Bearing in mind that errors potentially translate into deaths, probably disproportionately of the less privileged among us?
I'm not sure how it would be any different than existing expiration dates for OTC medicines, food, dairy, etc. In the case of medication, it is most likely to become less effective over time rather than toxic.
I don't know about that. There are variables beyond theoretical chemistry, like the packaging, the manufacturing process, etc.
I'm not anywhere near knowledgeable on pharma, but I worked on an FDA regulated medical device. If we made a claim, we had to test it. Knowing that e.g. every component in the machine was rated safe between temperatures X and Y did not mean that we didn't have to perform real environmental testing.
I would assume there's also liability to think about. If something goes wrong with a medicine after the expiration date it has to be better for the manufacturer. Also you probably want to leave some room for suboptimal storage
children as young as two years old are now being diagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with a cocktail of powerful drugs, many of which were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Why are we giving psychiatric drugs to people whose brains aren't fully developed, especially when there is still so much we don't understand about how the brain works?
Why consult a health professional if you're not going to trust what they have to say?
When a doctor tells a parent that their two year old is suffering from bipolar disorder and the way to treat that is to take a cocktail of meds then it's not the parents fault when they follow that advice.
Why treat doctors as infallible? Do you bring your car to the mechanic and blindly trust what they have to say?
Doctors are no better or worse than any other profession out there. 80% of doctors are pretty bad, and the other 20% make the rest look decent. Just like any profession that has ever existed.
You should be double-checking absolutely every single thing a doctor is telling you - especially important things like giving a two year old psychiatric meds that are not approved by the FDA.
I do agree with your point that it's not the parents "fault" - but I also would be pretty upset with my parents if they blindly followed whatever advice some guy with a piece of paper told them.
Trusting a professional's recommendation is not treating them as infallible, it's called "using the advice you paid for". No I don't blindly trust my mechanic, you shouldn't blindly trust anyone but generally when you seek out a professional's opinion on something it's because you value their expertise.
> You should be double-checking absolutely every single thing a doctor is telling you
Right, because the average person who knows next to nothing on mental health is going to make a better judgement call on which medication to prescribe their child than their doctor.
Guess what, if that were the case we wouldn't have a story here.
Right, because the average person who knows next to nothing on mental health is going to make a better judgement call on which medication to prescribe their child than their doctor.
Often, yes, the person who cares about the child more than about themselves will make a better decision than a doctor who has 300 more random kids to check that week.
Now, it depends on how that double-checking is done. The simplest way is to get a second (and third, and fourth) opinion, and then judging based on them all.
You should always be your own advocate, and you should always consider the treatment plan suggested by your doctor and ask questions. Note, please understand I _not_ telling you to be a dick. Doctors have a tough time of it and are expected to give "solutions" that make the patient happy. However, I say prescribed treatments should have an expected range of observable effect(s). Also treatments almost always have additional side effects. Ask about both of these.
Others have already said, but doctors can and do get things wrong.
I broke a collar bone. In the course of recovery I've seen three different physical therapists and while their suggestions overlapped some, there was a wide range of recommended exercises and stretches. One of them was great and super effective, one was meh, and one was down right useless.
This is one of the things that really keep me up at night. None of these drugs have been tested on children, and most of them haven't been subject to long term clinical trials even with adults.
ADHD is one of the scariest overperscribing stories. Researchers projected 3% of children have ADHD yet ADHD meds have been pushed on 15% of all children. Is it worth helping one kid to mistreat five?
Source:https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/books/review/adhd-nation-...
> Why are we giving prescription drugs to people whose brains aren't fully developed yet
Presumably, you left the word “psychiatric” out, or do you really think we shouldn't be, e.g., giving antibiotics to infants with life-threatening infections?
Yea, also notice how in the Glass wearing video the technician brings up the tools he needs and sets them on the floor whereas in the other video he sets each tool back and forth.
Could it be that the glasses also tell you which tools you'll need, allowing you to plan ahead, whereas the alternative is to fetch a tool when you need it?
Generally when you're doing shit like this you read the destructions first and grab the tools. That is if your destructions are good and actually list them and sizes which most aren't... Which wouldn't help if it was or wasn't in glass, that's a content problem not a form factor issue. I will say I'd rather bring these hardened devices in than get oil on my smart phone which is what I did last week.
I do like sticking my smart phone in holes to take photos there I can't otherwise get.
It is typical for the terms of the license include giving back and not using the actually stolen documents/code. The license would just allow them to redesign without worrying about the other party indirectly using the trade secrets. It's because you can't really close pandora's box.
Though in many cases its beneficial to use this as a way to become a key supplier to a competitor. If it's not a winner take all market (and I doubt this is), then it might be more profitable to take a cut from Uber than to reduce competition by one.
A Google / Uber joint venture where Google provides the software and Uber does fleet management could be unbeatable, for example.
The protection of IPR is a strategic concern of Google. Outright theft committed by the highest levels in both companies is hard to settle for them because of the message it sends. Google may perceive to have more at stake than simply the self driving related IPR.
Although when you have as much money as Levandowski already had even before this acquisition, it's hard to imagine that money is really the main motivating factor any more. He won't make it out with his reputation or his power intact.
> Although when you have as much money as Levandowski already had even before this acquisition, it's hard to imagine that money is really the main motivating factor any more.
It really isn't hard to imagine - no one is too rich to be greedy, even billionaires want more money.
Because lawsuits can drag on for years (if not decades!) and Google is a major investor in Uber. Google/Waymo might not want to actually destroy the company.
They'd own a broken company. Bear in mind that this sort of litigation can run five to ten years if you let the lawyers on both sides wrestle to their hearts' content. It becomes all consuming. Executives spend much of their time preparing for depositions, tussling about what ambiguous documents mean, tussling about what obvious documents might mean if you try hard to misinterpet them, etc.
It's no fun to be working in such an environment. Everyone who can afford to get out, gets out.
Perhaps even enough cash to create the dominant ride hail company from scratch.
Coca-cola was about to buy Gatorate for $13B. Buffett squashed the deal at the 11th hour and Pepsi paid $14B. Buffett presumably thought that Coca-cola could use the $13B to make its own sports drink. It's still not clear which company was wiser.
What do you mean by that? Could they actually be awarded ownership of Uber if the damages were larger than a cash amount Uber could pay? Or do you mean indirectly, like, Uber gets found liable for say $10bn, and Google offers isntead to buy a controlling share of Uber and then forgive the liability?
> Could they actually be awarded ownership of Uber if the damages were larger than a cash amount Uber could pay?
Sure, although that's an extremely unlikely outcome. Normally the company would be liquidated to pay the judgment (this is basically what happened in Bollea (Hogan) v Gawker - Gawker couldn't afford the damages, so had to declare bankruptcy and sell itself to pay for them).
It amounts to the same thing though - when the company gets liquidated, Google can buy all the assets and continue to operate the business, knowing that all the money they pay will be going right back into their own pockets.
Obviously, it runs the risk someone else will come along and buy the company instead, but any other buyer will have significant ongoing IP concerns by using google tech vs re-engineering stuff. Hence, Google will probably outbid other buyers since the company has more utility to them than to others.
Google Ventures owns only 6% of Uber. If they can drag this out sufficently, then Uber cannot IPO, will have burnt all their cash - and the whole company will be at the mercy of their biggest creditor who just got awarded a billion-dollar penalty payment.
The math still doesn't work. Right now 6% of Uber is worth about $4 billion, if you believe the latest venture valuation. (Make adjustments as you see fit.) If this is litigated until Uber collapses in a heap of dust, Google ends up owning 100% of a heap of dust.
No money left to pay off the judgment. Most of the talent is gone, and the folks that remain are hardly motivated to rebuild the business for their new masters. The Napster mess is instructive. The brand might live on, but no one gets rich in the process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster#Shutdown
If the article's predictions come true, gaining control of Uber isn't Google's only motivation. They have a secondary motivation: To set a precedent that serves as an example to other people who have the opportunity to sell or buy their trade secrets.
If there's a $680 million prize for a successful theft, and people think the chances of being caught are low, you'll need a big penalty to act as an effective deterrent.
> If there's a $680 million prize for a successful theft, and people think the chances of being caught are low, you'll need a big penalty to act as an effective deterrent.
The problem here is the prize. It's not a paltry few hundred millions. Just in the USA the yearly car sales are above 500 billion and we are talking about disrupting that big time. Really, really big time. It is not unreasonable to think that private car ownership will become deprecated in 20-30 years. Do you think Google won't be happy to burn the $260M they invested in Uber and a hundred more for lawyers over the years to make sure Uber doesn't get an illicit advantage when the time comes of who will be the doorkeeper?
Can you imagine -- and I know Google can -- the possibilities of an ad company selling all the cars there is? Or the software therein which amounts to the same. Your self driving taxi today is free you just need to listen / watch / immerse / whatever happens by then to ads enroute. You can't even count the trillions they would make.
On the other hand, if they think that Uber is likely to go down anyways, a big settlement could allow Alphabet to recover a disproportional amount relative to other investors. Timing would be key, ideally they would want to settle while there is still cash, and use the legal battle as an excuse to find a buyer for their stake while there is still hope.
Thinking in conspiracy theory mode I wonder if it could be possible that Alphabet knew about the theft for longer than they admit, waiting for Uber's self driving projects to grow more valuable, kind of like a secret stake. Would that even be legal?
